Wirtz: Americans must sacrifice to help the planet

Ive written this column before, but that was before millions and millions of Americans started preaching the twin gospels of global warming and environmentalism to whomever will listen.

It was before Al Gore published his book "An Inconvenient Truth" and before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its report on global warming.

It was before the Environmental Protection Agency was ruled to have jurisdiction over the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (remember, inhale, dont exhale).

It was before President George Bush finally admitted that, yes, global warming is a problem.

And it was before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, formed a new committee in the House of Representatives to look into the effects of global warming.

"One of my first decisions as Speaker was to elevate the issue of climate change with a committee that would work across committee jurisdictions and around the world to find solutions  so I formed the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming," she told the League of Conservation Voters at a dinner at Union Station in Washington Wednesday evening.

But Im still not hearing what I would like to hear, what I wrote about when I first talked about this subject.

I wrote a few years ago that as much as people want to talk about what can be done to reduce our environmental and conservation "footprint," nothing much good will come of anything if our leaders dont start telling people that there will be sacrifices, that it will cost people more and that Americans must begin to conserve.

They can change all the light bulbs in the United States to flourescent ones and they can talk about alternative fuels and throw money after research (which will help), but they too must tell people we must sacrifice.

We cannot continue to add 1,000 square feet on average to each house being built (as we have done over the past decade, according to the National Association of Home Builders) and hope to accomplish anything.

We cannot keep gobbling up land as is being done in North Carolina (North Carolina will lose at least 2 million acres of forests and farmlands over the next 20 years, according to a new Environment North Carolina report, if things continue as they are today) and hope to accomplish anything.

These are just two examples. There are many, many more.

But Im not hearing anything about these kinds of sacrifices from our leaders. Why not?